Family Home neglect

[familydilema]

My mother is in a care home now. She's 90 and up until 2 years ago was fairly independent.. my brother had been living in the family home and the arrangement suited everyone as she needed the company and his work was erratic and he's never been good with money.
Mum had always been a hoarder but house was clean. She pays for care home from her savings and my brother has stayed on in the house. He is 60
The house is desperately needing re decorating, cleaning and sorting, but my brother does nothing. He pays the bills but that's it.. no mortgage.. it's a 3 bedroom house and he seems to have become a hoarder now. He seems content to live in a mess, but I think at some point we will have to sell it to pay for care home. It's getting me down to see the decline. I've suggested he gets someone in to decorate it but he complains of having no money, I can't afford to pay for it .. it's really effecting my relationship with him.

hopefully you have POA for your mum ,and not your brother.
it can take time to clear and sell a home ,so you really need to work out how much money Is left ,before her savings run out ,or you might find you have to pay .
are you absolutely sure he has no rights to the house ,mum definitely didn’t put his down as owning half or anything.

I wouldn’t worry about fixing anything
your main concern is getting it on the market and getting it sold

Thanks for reply. Myself and my two siblings have POA together, but we can't find her Will. My sister went with her to solicitors and is certain the house wasn't left solely to him. My brother won't budge on the house front and because he is 60 and he lives there apparently its better to keep it

If the will was done at a solicitors i would assume they have a copy on file?

If your brother is 60 and living in the home then the value of the house may well be disregarded for care home fees.

If your DM runs out of savings the local authority would take over paying the bills for the care home. You wouldn't need to sell the house.

www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/care/paying-for-care/paying-for-a-care-home/do-i-have-to-sell-my-home-to-pay-for-care/

That said, there might be some argument he should have been paying some sort of rent. Which would have contributed toward care home fees for longer rather than living there for free but I don't know there is any strict rule around that.

In terms of the keeping the house in a good state of repair there probably isn't much you can do to force him.

If you have POA you could possibly use some of your Mum's money to pay for a cleaner / some repairs since she does still own the house and have some responsibility for upkeep. This would also make more sense if your brother was paying some rent.

I'm not sure social services/council would regard the brother as a dependant unless he has a disability or some other reason that he cannot work. If he's not a dependant I think they can force the sale of the house (once her savings are below 23k or whatever the threshold is now).

That is assuming that he doesn't own part or all of the house though. Might be worth checking with the Land Registry.

A family who lived near my mum was in this position, son in his late 50s, never left home, never worked and his mother needing residential care and him refusing to move out. The house was sold in the end and I presume the council found him accommodation.

There is also the ethical issue that if the brother is an attorney he is legally bound to act in his mother's financial best interest. It's arguably in her best interest that the house is sold - it doesn't sound like she's going to be going home and her money needs to not be tied up in a house she cannot live in. I don't know what you can do about this though, I'm in a slightly similar position with a sibling who won't agree to the house sale but they don't live in it and our parent is still well above the savings threshold.

Thanks for all replies. I was hoping my brother would start paying rent and this could go towards fees in the future or pay for maintenance of house. The solicitor doesn't have a copy of the will unfortunately so it's somewhere in the house. Would LA pay for fees if there is a house to sell? I think he's banking of being able to stay